Dir - Drew Hancock
Overall: MEH
The full-length debut from writer/director Drew Hancock takes the bare bones theme of emotional detachment via a warped reliance on technology and hits a stream of predicable beats, emerging in a landscape where people are less inclined to participate in self-growth or meaningful relationships with actual people more than ever. In this sense, Companion does not re-write any metaphoric genre rules. Instead, it picks up on ideas previously explored all the way back in Ira Levin's 1972 novel The Stepford Wives and its film adaptation three years later, where men are compelled to partner with idealized "companions" who will obey their every nuanced whim instead of thinking for themselves or forcing their other half to better their selves. These ideas are merely updated here, with modern comedic sensibilities, shiny production aspects, and an overall R-rated popcorn presentation. In the leads, Jack Quaid makes an agreeable scumbag and Sophie Thatcher a charming robot who runs through a gamut of emotions depending on what her programing is. Some of the moments are funny, (mostly stemming around the chaotic way in which Quaid's moronic plan unfolds), but the film plays its trajectory too safe to be anything worth remembering once the credits roll.
Dir - Jaume Collet-Serra
Overall: MEH
Utilizing a "Black List" script from newcomer Sam Stefanak, director Jaume Collet-Serra returns to the horror genre with another botched effort that only goes so far with its unsettling premise. Judging by the title and the movie's poster, The Woman in the Yard does in fact contain a woman in a yard; a mysterious presence that arrives unexpectedly on a summer morning to creep out a recently widowed woman and her two children who are all begrudgingly taking one day at a time in an isolated farm house with no electricity or charged cell phones. Because what horror movie is complete without stranded characters not being able to call for help? Unfortunately, the film goes nowhere with its fetching set-up, at least nowhere that delivers on any of its skin-crawling potential. Instead, we have yet another story about relatable people going through debilitating grief, fracturing at the seems and welcoming in malevolent forces to warrant some jump scares, CGI shadow tomfoolery, and topsy-survy depictions of psychological anguish. Danielle Deadwyler does commendable work in the lead, but her performance deserves a movie that is not simultaneously trying to go bump in the night, (or in this case the day time), with on-the-nose themes, a muddled third act, and hackneyed genre beats.
Dir - Oz Perkins
Overall: MEH
Horror practitioner Oz Perkins takes his first crack at overt comedy with the Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, a goofy take on the 1980 straight-faced short story that originally appeared in Gallery magazine. On the one hand, someone making a Stephen King movie that does not take itself seriously is a good thing, as production studios keep either rummaging for untapped material from the author or worse yet, just remake seminal films based upon it. In either case, these King movies rarely play their premises for chuckles, which makes Perkins' absurd take on a wind-up toy monkey that murders random people in Final Destination ways something of a breath of fresh air, not least of all because most of the on screen death's are cartoonishly hilarious. Unfortunately, that is the only thing that the film has going for it. By Perkins' own admittance, he is working out some of his own life lessons, namely that actual life is hardly precious and can be taken away in cruel and arbitrary moments, (his famous dad Anthony died of AIDS and his mom was on one of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Centers on 9/11), but the story's lone joke about everyone dying and having to move on fails to emotionally connect. Maybe this is because none of the characters are likeable, maybe it is because the film's relentlessly cynical attitude grows wearisome quick, maybe it is because the CGI gore looks terrible, maybe it is because jump scares need to fucking stop being a thing already, or maybe it is just the unavoidable tonal imbalance that comes with cathartically working through tragedy.
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